The oldest water in the world is at the bottom of a Canadian mine and is two billion years old
Don't drink the forbidden prehistoric water.
In the year 2016, deep below a Canadian mine, researchers made an archaeological discovery, the oldest water pool in the world at a depth of approximately 3 km. It is impressive that this water is two billion years old.
This discovery led to the re-dating of the oldest known water at least 500 million years ago. The previous recorded date was for water preserved in the same mine and by the same team back in 2013. This water was found at a depth of about 2.5 km.
In fact this mine is the deepest base metal mine, as the search for copper, zinc and silver drives workers deep into the earth's crust.
As the miners dug deeper, the researchers took the opportunity to explore more of the mine. They analyzed the water they discovered by studying the gases trapped inside.
Gases such as helium and xenon can be trapped in the water suspended in rocky fissures, and measurement of these gases can determine the age of the water.
"When people think of this water they assume it must be a tiny amount of water trapped inside the rock," Professor Barbara Sherwood Lawler, who presented the discovery to BBC News, told BBC News. Far greater than anyone's expectations.
In addition, the large volume of water is not the only significant discovery. When the researchers analyzed the fluid, they found traces of life in it, as they could not detect live bacteria yet.
What they actually discovered was the imprint of life, from this they were able to deduce that there was a microscopic form of life that lived in the water over a long period of time.
The fact that something has managed to survive and even thrive in these very ancient waters deep within the Earth has some important implications. Not only to tell us about life on Earth but to search for life outside it.
While rivers no longer flow on Mars, pockets of water and ice remain beneath its surface.
These pockets are not close to the depth of the water discovered in Canada, and it is possible that the conditions necessary for microorganisms to live exist in them.
Source : websites